Technology news

KitchenMate is a Toronto-based startup promising businesses a fresh approach to feeding their employees.
The startup has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Eniac Venturesand Golden Ventures, with participation from FJ Labs and Techstars. It’s also expanding into the United States.
Founder and CEO Yang Yusaid KitchenMatewas founded with the goal of providing “healthy meals at an affordable cost.” The solution he and his team developed combines refrigerated, tamper-p

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Early this week, Robert Robbins, president of the University of Arizona, got a phone call about poop that helped him stop an outbreak of COVID-19.As part of the school’s return-to-campus plan, the university was analyzing the wastewater from on-campus dorms for signs of the coronavirus. The professor heading the project was calling to say he’d found the virus in the sewage from a dorm called Likins Hall.Administrators descended on the dorm

Image: Annapurna Interactive Annapurna Interactive debuted a new trailer for Twelve Minutes, which the studio describes as “an interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop,” at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2020. The trailer features an ominous voiceover from Willem Dafoe, and the game will also include the voice talents of James McAvoy and Daisy Ridley.
Twelve Minutes seems to take place entirely from a top-down perspective of a small apartment — much of the trailer

Sony debuted new gameplay footage for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the first PlayStation 5 entry in the long-running hit series from Insomniac Games, at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2020. Sony shared an initial look at Rift Apart at Sony’s big PS5 games reveal in June, including some gameplay, and today’s extended video built upon what has already been shown.Today’s demo featured a lot of classic Ratchet & Clank gameplay — strafe shooting, jumping, platforming, and

Gamescom 2020 may not be the in-person spectacle we’ve come to know, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal. The virtual version of the trade show kicked off with Gamescom Opening Night Live, a two-hour-long event that featured plentiful announcements and trailers, covering everything from the Fall Guys phenomenon to upcoming blockbusters like Star Wars: Squadrons and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
If you missed the show, here are all the biggest reveals.Dragon Age is sti

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is blocking searches for “Kyle Rittenhouse,” the gunman allegedly responsible for the killing of two protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin Tuesday night. The behavior was first reported by Rolling Stone, but The Verge was able to confirm the block through direct testing. A search for the name returns no results, while a more general search returns a number of results with the shooter’s name included.
After Rittenhouse was identified

Image: Google After announcing Chromecast support for Google Meet, Google has now revealed that the company’s consumer video chat app, Duo, will be coming to Android TV in the form of a native app that lets users start video calls from their TV screen. A beta of Google Duo for Android TV will be released “in the coming weeks.” You can launch both one-on-one and group video calls with the app. “If your TV doesn’t have a camera built-in, you can simply plug in a USB

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This is the fourth episode of the week, pushing our production calendar to the test. Happily, we’ve managed to hold it together amidst the news deluge that the last few days have brought. It was a good week for our scheduling change, with the main episode of the show coming to you on Thursday afternoon versus Friday morning.
Change

Image: Electronic Arts Joining the long list of expansion packs for Electronic Arts’ The Sims 4 is one we haven’t quite seen before: a Star Wars-themed one, called Journey to Batuu. The expansion, detailed in a Gamescom trailer aired during the virtual-only presentation on Thursday, is due out September 8th and brings with it a number of signature characters, items, and environments from the classic franchise.There are droids, lightsabers, and even Rey and Kylo Ren. The trailer also

The new season of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Mediatonic’s colorful battle royale platformer, will add new games inspired by the Middle Ages. The developer announced the news today during Gamescom celebrations; players will be able to compete through games inspired by medieval designs.In Fall Guys, players compete in 60-player elimination-based mini-games. The games are simple — races to the finish line, obstacles courses, or memory matching — but fast and fun to cycle throug

A handful of voter advocacy groups filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s social media executive order on Thursday, according to Protocol. The order was signed after Twitter fact-checked false tweets by Trump on mail-in voting earlier this year, and Thursday’s lawsuit seeks to ensure platforms can counter voting misinformation online.
In their complaint, organizations including Rock the Vote and Free Press argue that the order has the potential to jeopardize the rights of v

Image: EA / Motive Studios EA has debuted a new gameplay trailer for Motive’s upcoming Star Wars: Squadron during the Gamescom opening night live stream, giving another look at the single-player campaign for the starfighter pilot simulator.
The new trailer shows off how players will jump into the role of two conflicting pilots — one from the Empire and one from the New Republic — in alternating missions. There are also cameos from film characters, like Wedge Antilles.
Most of

Image: Activision Activision has finally unveiled this year’s Call of Duty title — Black Ops Cold War. It will launch on November 13th, and Activision is making a big deal about how it’s a cross-gen title for both PS5 and PS4, and Xbox One and Xbox Series X, in addition to PC.But if you plan to upgrade to PS5 or Xbox Series X this holiday season, your purchase decision gets a little complicated.
Currently, there are ten versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War — and

In 2018, the League of Legends World Championship opened in stunning fashion, thanks to an augmented reality concert from a virtual K-pop group called K/DA. The video for the virtual group’s first single, “Pop/Stars,” currently has more than 360 million views on Facebook, and K/DA inspired its own niche of fandom. Now, in the lead-up to this year’s World Championship, the group is back with a new single called “The Baddest.”
You can check out the song in the l

Image: Activision Activision and its development studios, Treyarch and Raven Software, debuted a new trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and it happens to feature a somewhat eerie and unexpected new character in the series: actual President Ronald Reagan. The trailer aired during the digital-only Gamescom 2020 event, following the game’s official reveal yesterday.
Incorporating a real-life historical and political figure — one whose tenure still has controvers

Info on the next Dragon Age game is still scarce — BioWare has yet to announce an official title or even show off the game’s cast — but the team behind the hotly anticipated game has some insight to share. The developer released a behind-the-scenes video today with a few more clues: a story about “what happens when you don’t have power? What happens when the people in charge aren’t willing to address the issues?” said lead writer Patrick Weekes.
The vide

Sony’x upcoming Xperia 5 II — the successor to last year’s Xperia 5 — has leaked almost in full thanks to a leaked promotional video obtained by Android Headlines, which has revealed almost all the information on Sony’s smaller flagship ahead of its planned September 17th release.Much like last year’s Xperia 5, which was a smaller version of the full-sized Xperia 1, the Xperia 5 II looks like a shrunken down version of the Xperia 1 II — although presumab

Photo by Brent Rose for The Verge GoPro will now let people on Windows PCs use its Hero 8 action camera as a webcam — though the experience is only in beta for now. The compatibility with Windows follows the introduction of the webcam functionality for macOS users in July.
While a GoPro probably won’t make you look quite as nice as if you were using a DSLR or mirrorless camera as your webcam, you’ll likely have better image quality than the webcam built into your laptop. GoPro

Photo by Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images Esports organization TSM has signed its first professional chess player, US grandmaster and five-time champion Hikaru Nakamura. The youngest American to ever earn that coveted ranking at age 15, Nakamura is considered among the best players in the world, routinely ranking alongside world champion Magnus Carlsen as one of the greatest living chess grandmasters.Nakamura, now 32 years old, also maintains a successful social media presence, with more than 17

Meet Fondeadora, a fintech startup based in Mexico City that wants to build a full-stack neobank. The company just raised a $14 million Series A round led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund. Founded in 2018, the company already manages 150,000 accounts and is adding $20 million in deposits every month.
Mexico represents a massive opportunity for a challenger bank as many people still rely on cash for most of their transactions. Given that all countries are progressively

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The OnePlus 8 Pro in the onyx black or ultramarine blue color variant is $80 off at Amazon right now. This discount brings the total down to $920. In case you missed it, some OnePlus phones aren’t so cheap — even with a sizable discount like this one applied to it. Nevertheless, if you’ve been waiting for even a slight price drop on the unlocked model that features the Snapdragon 865 processor, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of fast UFS 3.0 storage, t

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve is adding a customizable profanity and slur filter to Steam’s chat system. The feature is now available through the Steam Lab beta program, with plans to make it a universal option soon. It filters a default list of commonly used “strong profanity” and slurs for “racial, religious, ethnic, and other identifying groups,” but users can choose to add or remove specific words or upload full block lists of terms.
Steam alrea

Google is expanding its “Snapshot” feature in Assistant, adding new reminders and more proactive suggestions for new activities you may want to try.The initial version of Snapshot showed information like your daily commute time, upcoming schedule, reminders, upcoming flights, recent online orders, and stock market updates. Google is adding to that list with additional reminders for things like upcoming birthdays or holidays, too.The updated Snapshot view will also expand its recommen

Secretlab’s Omega chair shown with the SoftWeave black fabric added. | Secretlab If you want a comfortable chair with a low-profile design that won’t break the bank, Secretlab’s gaming chairs are generally agreed upon (even by a few Verge writers who have owned one) as being a worthy purchase. And now, its 2020 lineup of chairs, consisting of the Omega, Titan, and Titan XL, can be outfitted in a minimalist black colorway called SoftWeave black. While these chairs already look

Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress via Getty Images Walmart says it’s interested in partnering with Microsoft on a potential TikTok deal. The retailer is pitching the partnership as a way for it to expand its advertising business and grow its third-party marketplace. It comes as reports suggest Microsoft is close to finalizing a deal with TikTok, that could be announced in the coming days.
“The way TikTok has integrated e-commerce and advertising capabilities in other markets is a cle

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Revel has announced it’ll be resuming its electric moped service in New York City starting today, with new protective measures for riders like a mandatory in-app safety test and a requirement that all riders take a selfie of themselves wearing a helmet before they’ll be allowed to ride. The company worked with the City of New York in developing the new safety measures, and city officials have signed off on the new plan.Revel suspended its servi

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge If you own a Nintendo Switch or Switch Lite console, or are planning to get one soon, buying a microSD card to expand its internal storage should be your next move. Today, that comes as an affordable move to make, as Amazon has discounted Samsung’s 256GB microSD card by nearly half of its original price. It’s $30 for the rest of the day. Given that most Nintendo Switch games rarely soar above 10 or 15GB each (with many well below that size), this s

The internet rallied around TimTheTatman as the hugely popular Twitch streamer tried and failed, and failed, and failed again to take the crown at the end of a match of Fall Guys last week. When he finally did it, it felt like the whole world had won — a small, strange reprieve in the middle of a stressful summer.
“It was almost like everyone was pulling for the little guy,” Tim “TimTheTatman” Betar said in an interview with The Verge. “Like I can’t do i

The winner of this weekend’s Call of Duty League championship will get the normal assortment of goodies, including a trophy, a ring, and a hefty chunk of a $4.6 million prize pool. But the league is also offering something different to crown the winning team: a literal throne.
The imposing piece of furniture is the brainchild of designer Sheron Barber, who is best-known for reimagining luxury fashion and working with stars like Post Malone and Russell Westbrook. The chair hasn’t actu